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ALTEMUS' ETERNAL LIFE SERIES. 

Selections from the writings of well-known religious au- 
thors' works, beautifully printed and daintily bound in 
leatherette with original designs in silver and ink. 

PRICE, 35 CENTS PER VOLUME. 

ETERNAL LIFE, by Professor Henry Drummond. 
LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 
GOD'S WORD AND GOD'S WORK, by Martin Luther. 
FAITH, by Thomas Arnold. 
THE CREATION STORY, by Honorable William E- 

Gladstone. 
THE MESSAGE OF COMFORT, by Rt. Rev. Ashton 

Oxenden. 
THE MESSAGE OF PEACE, by Rev. R. W. Church. 
THE LORD'S PRAYER AND THE TEN COM- 
MANDMENTS, by Dean Stanley. 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS, by Rev. Robert F. Horton. 
HYMNS OF PRAISE AND GLADNESS, by Elisabeth 

R. Scovil. 
DIFFICULTIES, by Hannah Whitall Smith. 
GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING, by Rev, Henry Ward 

Beecher. 
HAVE FAITH IN GOD, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 
TWELVE CAUSES OF DISHONESTY, by Rev. Henry 

Ward Beecher. 
THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE 

by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
IN MY NAME, by Rev. Andrew Murray. 
SIX WARNINGS, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. 
THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN, 

by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS, by Rev. Henry Ward 

Beecher. 
TRUE LIBERTY, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, by Rev. Henry Ward 

Beecher. 
THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE, by Rt. 

Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD, by Rev. A. 

T. Pierson, D.D. 
THOUGHT AND ACTION, by Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks. 
THE HEAVENLY VISION, by Rev. F. B. Meyer. 
MORNING STRENGTH, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 
FOR THE QUIET HOUR, by Edith V. Bradt. 
EVENING COMFORT, by Elisabeth R. Scovil. 
WORDS OF HELP FOR CHRISTIAN GIRLS, by 

Rev. F. B. Meyer. 
HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE, by Rev. Dwight L- 

Moody. 
EXPECTATION CORNER, by E. S. Elliot. 
JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER, by Hesba Stretton. 
JESSICA'S MOTHER, by Hesba Stretton. 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD, by 

Henry Drummond. 
HOW TO LEARN HOW, by Henry Drummond. 
WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? THE STUDY OFTHE BI- 
BLE; A TALK ON BOOKS, by Henry Drummond. 
PAX VOBISCUM, by Henry Drummond. 
THE CHANGED LIFE, by Henry Drummond. 
FIRST ! A TALK WITH BOYS, by Henry Drummond. 

HENRY ALTEMUS, Philadelphia. 




HENRY DRUMMOND 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 



^ . 



What is a Christ- 
ian ? The Study of 
The Bible; A Talk 
on Books 



By 
Henry Drummond 



Philadelphia 
Henry Altemus 



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The Ijbim.ry 

OF D*-' ss 



WASHINGTON 



13964 



Copyright, 1808, by Henry Altemus. 



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WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 



\/OUNG men are learning to respect 
* more, perhaps, than ever young 
men have done, the word "Christian." 
I have seen the time when it was sy- 
nonymous with cant and unreality and 
strained feeling and sanctimoniousness. 
But although that day is not quite 
passed yet, it is passing. I heard this 
definition the other day of a Christian 
man by a cynic — "A Christian man 
is a man whose great aim in life is a 
selfish desire to save his own soul, who, 
in order to do that, goes regularly to 

7 



8 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

church, and whose supreme hope is to 
get to Heaven when he dies." This 
reminds one of Professor Huxley's ex- 
amination paper in which the question 
was put — "What is a lobster?" One 
student replied that a lobster was a red 
fish, which moves backwards. The ex- 
aminer noted that this was a very good 
answer, but for three things. In the 
first place a lobster was not a fish ; sec- 
ond it was not red ; and third it did not 
move backwards. If there is anything 
that a Christian is not, it is one who 
has a selfish desire to save his own 
soul. The one thing which Christianity 
tries to extirpate from a man's nature 
is selfishness, even though it be the 
losing of his own soul. 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 9 

Christianity, as we understand it 
from Christ, appeals to the generous 
side of a young man's nature, and not 
to the selfish side. In the new version 
of the New Testament the word "soul" 
is always translated in this connection 
by the word "life." That marks a revo- 
lution in the popular theology, and it 
will make a revolution in every Young 
Man's Christian Association in the 
country where it comes to be seen that 
a man's Christianity does not consist 
in merely saving his own soul, but in 
sanctifying and purifying the lives of 
his fellow-men. We are told in the 
New Testament that Christianity is 
leaven, and "leaven" comes from the 
same root-word as lever, meaning that 



10 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

which raises up, which elevates; and 
a Christian young man is a man who 
raises up or elevates the lives of those 
round about him. We are also told 
that Christianity is salt, and salt is that 
which saves from corruption. What 
is it that saves the life of the world 
from being utterly rotten, but the 
Christian elements that are in it? 
Matthew Arnold has said, "Show me 
ten square miles in any part of the 
world outside Christianity where the 
life of man and the purity of woman 
are safe, and I will give Christianity 
up." In no part of the world is there 
any such ten square miles outside 
Christianity. Christian men are the 
salt of the earth in the most literal 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 11 

sense. They, and they alone, keep 
the world from utter destruction. 

I want to say a word here about the 
Young Men's Christian Associations. 
Many have criticised them. They have 
been the target for a great deal of 
abuse. Many of the best young men 
have sneered at them, and turned up 
their noses at them, and denounced 
them. I am speaking with absolute 
sympathy and respect, and even enthu- 
siasm, for Young Men's Christian 
Associations. But I will turn for one 
instant upon those men who turn 
against them, and tell them that it is 
not breadth that leads them to do that, 
but what one might call the narrow- 
ness of breadth — that breadth which 



12 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN.' 

denounces intolerance, and which is 
itself too intolerant to tolerate intoler- 
ance. And, as some one says, it is 
easier to criticise the best thing su- 
perbly than to do the smallest thing 
indifferently. 

It is very easy to criticise the meth- 
ods and aims and men of the Young 
Men's Christian Associations. If, in- 
stead of looking on and criticising those 
who know a thing or two, those who 
think they are wiser, and that they have 
the whole truth, would throw themselves 
in among others and back them and try 
to work alongside of them, they would 
get perhaps their breadth tempered by 
earnestness and by zeal, because the 
narrow man has much to contribute to 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 13 

the Christian cause, perhaps more than 
the broad man. But it needs all kinds 
of people to make a world ; it needs all 
kinds of people to make a church, and 
every type of young men a Christian 
Association; and the greatest mistake 
of all is to have every man stamped in 
the same stamp, so that if you met him 
in a railway train one hundred miles 
off, you would know him as a Y. M. 
C. A. man. I would like to find many 
who would not wear the badge so pro- 
nouncedly, that every one should know 
them at a glance. 

There is only one great character in 
the world that can really draw out all 
that is best in man. He is so far above 
all others in influencing men for good 



14 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

that He stands alone. That man was 
the founder of Christianity. To be a 
Christian man is to have that character 
for our ideal in life, to live under its 
influence, to do what He would wish 
us to do, to live the kind of life He 
would have lived in our house, and had 
He our day's routine to go through. 
It would not, perhaps, alter the forms 
of our life, but it would alter the spirit 
and aims and motives of our life, and 
the Christian man is he who in that 
sense lives under the influence of Jesus 
Christ. 

Now, there is nothing that a young 
man wants for his ideal that is not 
found in Christ. You would be sur- 
prised when you come to know who 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 15 

Christ is, if you have not thought much 
about it, to find how He will fit in with 
all human needs, and call out all that 
is best in man. The highest and man- 
liest character that ever lived was 
Christ. One incident I often think of 
and wonder. You remember, when 
He hung upon the cross, there was 
handed up to Him a vessel containing 
a stupefying drug, supplied by a kind 
society of ladies in Jerusalem, who 
always sent it to criminals when being 
executed. And that stupefying drug 
was handed up to Christ's lips. And 
we read, "When he tasted thereof 
He would not drink." I have always 
thought that one of the most heroic 
actions I have ever read of But that. 



1G WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

was only one very small side of Christ's 
nature. He can be everything that a 
man wants. Paul tells us that if we 
live in Christ we are changed into His 
image. All that a man has to do, 
then, to be like Christ, is simply to 
live in friendship with Christ, and the 
character follows. 

But it is only one of the aims of 
Christianity to make the best men. 
The next thing Christ wants to do is 
to make the best world. And He 
tries to make the best world by setting 
the best men loose upon the world to 
influence it and reflect Him upon it. 
In 1874 a religious movement began 
in Edinburgh University among the 
students themselves, that has since 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 17 

spread to some of the best academic 
institutions in America. The students 
have a hall, and there they meet on 
Sundays, or occasionally on week-days, 
to hear addresses from their profes- 
sors, or from outside eminent men, on 
Christian topics. There is no com- 
mittee; there are no rules; there are 
no reports. Every meeting is held 
strictly in private, and any attempt to 
pose before the world is sternly dis- 
couraged. No paragraphs are put into 
the journals; no addresses are reported. 
The meetings are private, quiet, ear- 
nest, and whatsoever student likes may 
attend them. That is all. It is not 
an organization in the ordinary sense, 
it is a "leaven." In all the schools 



18 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

it is the best men who take most 
part in the movement, and among the 
schools it is the medical side which 
furnishes the greatest number of stu- 
dents to the meetings. Some of the 
most zealous have taken high honors 
in their examinations, and some have 
been in the first class of university 
athletes. It is not a movement that 
has laid hold of weak or worthless 
students whom nobody respects, but 
one that is maintained by the best men 
in every department. The first benefit 
is to the students themselves. Take 
Edinburgh, with about 4000 students 
drawn from all parts of the world, and 
living in rooms with no one caring for 
them, Taken away from the moral 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 19 

support of their previous surroundings, 
they went to the bad in hundreds. It is 
now found that through this movement 
they work better, and that a greater 
percentage pass honorably through the 
university portals into life. The reli- 
gious meetings, it is to be observed, 
are never allowed to interfere with the 
work of the students. The second 
result is to be seen in what are called 
university settlements. A few men 
will band themselves together and rent 
a house in the lower parts of the city 
and live there. They do no preaching, 
no formal evangelization work; but 
they help the sick and they arrange 
smoking concerts, and contribute to the 
amusement of their neighbors. They 



20 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

simply live with the people, and trust 
that their example will produce a good 
effect. Three years ago they printed 
and distributed among themselves the 
following "Programme of Christian- 
ity : " — " To bind up the broken- 
hearted, to give liberty to the captives, 
to comfort all that mourn, to give 
beauty for ashes, the garment of praise 
for the spirit of heaviness." I suppose 
there are few of us with broken hearts, 
but there are other people in the world 
besides ourselves, and underneath all 
the gayety of the city there is not a 
street in which there are not men and 
women with broken hearts. Who is 
to help these people? No one can lift 
them up in any way except those who 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 21 

are living the life of Christ, and it is 
their privilege and business to bind up 
the broken-hearted. 

I want to urge the claims of the 
Christian ministry on the strength and 
talent of our youth. I find a singular 
want of men in the Christian ministry, 
and I think it would be at least worth 
while for some of you to look around, 
to look at the men who are not filling 
the churches, to look at the needs of 
the crowds who throng the streets, and 
see if you could do better with your 
life than throw yourself into that work. 
The advantage of the ministry is that 
a man's whole life can be thrown into 
the carrying out of that programme 
without any deduction. Another ad- 



22 WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 

vantage of the ministry is that it is so 
poorly paid that a man is not tempted 
to cut a dash and shine in the world, 
but can be meek and lowly in heart, 
like his Master. It is enough for a 
servant to be like his master, and there 
is a great attraction in seeking obscu- 
rity, even isolation, if one can be 
following the highest ideal. 

With regard to the question, how 
you shall begin the Christian life, let 
me remind you that theology is the 
most abstruse thing in the world, but 
that practical religion is the simplest 
thing. If any of you want to know 
how to begin to be a Christian, all I 
can say is that you should begin to do 
the next thing you find to be done as 



WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN? 23 

Christ would have done it. If you 
follow Christ the "old man" will die 
of atrophy, and the "new man" will 
grow day by day under His abiding 
friendship. 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 



THE STUDY OF THE 
BIBLE. 



. WILL give a note or two, pretty 
* much by way of refreshing the 
memory about the Bible and how to 
look at it. 

First : The Bible came out of religion, 
not religion out of the Bible. The Bible 
is a product of religion, not a cause 
of it. The war literature of America, 
which culminated, I suppose, in the 
publication of President Grant's life, 
came out of the war ; the war did not 

27 



28 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

come out of the literature. And so in 
the distant past, there flowed among 
the nations of heathendom a small 
warm stream, like the Gulf Stream in 
the cold Atlantic — a small stream of 
religion; and now and then at inter- 
vals, men, carried along by this stream, 
uttered themselves in words. The his- 
torical books came out of facts; the 
devotional books came out of experi- 
ences ; the letters came out of circum- 
stances; and the Gospels came out of 
all three. That is where the Bible 
came from. It came out of religion ; 
religion did not come out of the Bible. 
You see the difference. The religion 
is not, then, in the writing alone; but 
in those facts, experiences, circum- 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 29 

stances, in the history and develop- 
ment of a people led and taught by 
God. And it is not the words that 
are inspired so much as the men. 

Secondly: These men were authors; 
they were not pens. Their individuality 
comes out on every page they wrote. 
They were different in mental and 
literary style ; in insight ; and even the 
same writer differs at different times. 
II. Thessalonians, for example, is con- 
siderably beneath the level of Romans, 
and III. John is beneath the level of 
I. John. A man is not always at his 
best. These writers did not know they 
weie writing a Bible. 

Third : The Bible is not a book ; it 
is a library. It consists of sixty-six 



30 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

books. It is a great convenience, but 
in some respects a great misfortune, 
that these books have always been 
bound up together and given out as 
one book to the world, when they are 
not ; because that has led to endless 
mistakes in theology and in practical 
life. 

Fourth : These books, which make 
up this library, written at intervals of 
hundreds of years, were collected after 
the last of the writers was dead — long 
after — by human hands. Where were 
the books ? Take the New Testament. 
There were four lives of Christ. One 
was in Rome; one was in Southern 
Italy; one was in Palestine; one in 
Asia Minor. There were twenty-one 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 31 

letters. Five were in Greece and 
Macedonia ; five in Asia ; one in 
Rome. The rest were in the pockets 
of private individuals. Theophilus had 
acts. They were collected undesign- 
edly. For example, the letter to the 
Galatians was written to the Church 
in Galatia. Somebody would make a 
copy or two, and put it into the hands 
of the members of the different 
churches, and they would find their 
way not only to the churches in Gala- 
tia, but after an interval to nearly 
all the churches. In those days the 
Christians scattered up and down 
through the world, exchanged copies 
of those letters, very much as geolo- 
gists up and down the world exchange 



32 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

specimens of minerals at the present 
time, or entomologists exchange speci- 
mens of butterflies. And after a long 
time a number of the books began to 
be pretty well known. In the third 
century the New Testament consisted 
of the following books : the four Gos- 
pels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, 
I. John, I. Peter ; and in addition, the 
Epistles of Barnabas and Hermas. 
This was not called the New Testa- 
ment, but the Christian Library. Then 
these last books were discarded. They 
ceased to be regarded as upon the 
same level as the others. In the 
fourth century the canon was closed — 
that is to say, a list was made up of 
the books which were to be regarded 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 33 

as canonical. And then long after 
that they were stitched together and 
made up into one book — hundreds of 
years after that. Who made up the 
complete list? It was never formally 
made up. The bishops of the differ- 
ent churches would draw up a list 
each of the books that they thought 
ought to be put into this Testament. 
The churches also would give their 
opinion. Sometimes councils would 
meet and talk it over — discuss it. 
Scholars like Jerome would investi- 
gate the authenticity of the different 
documents, and there came to be a 
general consensus of the churches on 
the matter. But no formal closing of 
the canon was ever attempted. 



34 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

And lastly : All religions have their 
sacred books, just as the Christians 
have theirs. Why is it necessary to 
remind ourselves of that ? If you ask 
a man why he believes such and such 
a thing, he will tell you, Because it is 
in the Bible. If you ask him, " How 
do you know the Bible is true?" he 
will probably reply, " Because it says 
so." Now, let that man remember 
that the sacred books of all the other 
religions make the same claim ; and 
while it is quite enough among our- 
selves to talk about a thing being true 
because it is in the Bible, we come in 
contact with outsiders, and we have to 
meet the skepticism of the day. We 
must go far deeper than that. The 



i 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 35 

religious books of the other religions 
claim to be far more divine in their 
origin than do ours. For example, the 
Mohammedans claim for the Koran — 
a large section of them, at least — that 
it was uncreated, and that it lay before 
the throne of God from the beginning 
of time. They claim it was put in 
the hands of the angel Gabriel, who 
brought it down to Mahomet, and dic- 
tated it to him, and allowed him at 
long intervals to have a look at the 
original book itself — bound with silk 
and studded with precious stones. That 
is a claim of much higher Divinity than 
we claim for our book ; and if we sim- 
ply have to rely upon the Bible's tes- 
timony to its own verity, it is for the 



36 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

same reason the Mohammedan would 
have you believe his book, and the 
Hindu would have you put your trust 
in the Vedas. That is why thorough 
Bible study is of such importance. We 
can get to the bottom of truth in itself, 
and be able to give a reason for the 
faith that is in us. 

Now may I give you, before I stop, 
just a couple of examples of how the 
Bible came out of religion, and not 
religion out of the Bible ? Take one 
of the letters. Just see how it came 
out of the circumstances of the time. 
The first of the letters that was written 
will do very well as an example. It is 
the ist Epistle to the Thessalonians. 
In the year 52 Paul went to Europe. 



THE STUDY OF THE BISLE. 37 

He spent three Sundays in Thessa- 
lonica, created a great disturbance by 
his preaching, and a riot sprang up, 
and his life was in danger. He was 
smuggled out of the city at night — 
not, however, before having founded 
a small church. He was unable to 
go back to Thessalonica, although he 
tried it two or three times ; but he 
wrote a letter. That is the first letter 
to the Thessalonians. You see how it 
sprang out of the circumstances of the 
time. Take a second example. Let 
us take one of the lives of Christ. 
Suppose you take the life recorded by 
Mark. Now, from internal evidences 
you can make out quite clearly how it 
was written, by whom it was written, 



38 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

and to whom it was written. You 
understand at once it was written to a 
Roman public. If I were writing a 
letter to a red Indian I would make it 
very different from a letter I would 
write to a European. Now, Mark puts 
in a number of points which he would 
not if he had been writing to Greeks. 
For example, Mark almost never quotes 
prophecy. The Romans did not know 
anything about prophecy. Then, he 
gives little explanation of Jewish cus- 
toms. When I was writing home I 
had to give some little explanations 
of American customs — for example, 
Commencement Day. When Mark 
writes to Rome about things hap- 
pening farther East, he gives elab- 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 39 

orate explanations. Again, Mark is 
fond of Latin words — writing to the 
Latins, who could understand them. 
He talks about " centurion/* " praeto- 
rium," and others. Then, he always 
turns Jewish money into Roman money, 
just as I should say a book, if I were 
writing to Europe about it, cost two 
shillings, instead of fifty cents. Mark, 
for example, says, " two mites, which 
make a codrantes." He refers to the 
coins which the Romans knew. In 
these ways we find out that the Bible 
came out of the circumstances and the 
places and the times in which it was 
written. Then if we will we can 
learn where Mark got his information, 
to a large extent. It is an extremely 



40 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

interesting study. I should like to 
refer to Gocet's " New Testament 
Studies/' where you will get this 
worked out. Let me just indicate to 
you how these sources of information 
are arrived at — the principal sources 
of information. There are a number 
of graphic touches in the book which 
indicate an eye-witness. Mark him- 
self could not have been the eye- 
witness; and yet there are a number 
of graphic touches which show that he 
got his account from an eye-witness. 
You will find them, for example, in 
Mark iv. 38; x. 50; vi. 31; vii. 34. 
You will find also graphic touches 
indicating an ear-witness — as if the 
voice lingered in the mind of the 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 41 

writer. For example, the retention of 
Aramaic in v. 41 ; and in vii. 34 — 
41 Talitha cumi ; Damsel, I say unto 
thee, arise." He retained the Aramaic 
words Christ said, as I would say in 
Scotland, "My wee lassie, rise up." 
The very words lingered in his ear, 
and he put them in the original. Then 
there are occasional phrases indicating 
the moral impression produced — v. 15 ; 
x. 24; x. 32. Now, Mark himself 
was not either the eye-witness or ear- 
witness. There is internal evidence 
that he got his information from Peter. 
We know very well that Mark was 
an intimate friend of Peter's. When 
Peter came to Mark's house in Jerusa- 
lem, after he got out of prison, the 



42 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

very servant knew his voice, so that 
he must have been well known in the 
house. Therefore he was a friend of 
Mark's. The coloring and notes seem 
to be derived from Peter. There is a 
sense of wonder and admiration which 
you find all through the book, very 
like Peter's way of looking at things — 
i. 27 ; i. 33; i. 45; ii. 12; v. 42; and 
a great many others. But, still more 
interesting, Mark quotes the words, 
"Get thee behind Me, Satan/' which 
were said to Peter's shame, but he 
omits the preceding words said to his 
honor — " Thou art Peter. On this 
rock," and so on. Peter had learned 
to be humble when he was telling 
Mark about it. Compare Mark viii. 



THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 43 

27-33, with Matthew's account — xvi. 
13-33. Mark also omits the fine 
achievement of Peter — walking on 
the lake. When Peter was talking to 
Mark, he never said anything about 
it. Compare vi. 50 with Matthew's 
account — xiv. 28. And Mark alone 
records the two warnings given to 
Peter by the two cock-crowings, mak- 
ing his fall the more inexcusable. See 
Mark xiv. 30 ; also the 68th verse 
and the 72d. Peter did not write the 
book; we know that, because Peter's 
style is entirely different. None of 
the four Gospels have the names of 
the writers attached to them. We 
have had to find all these things out ; 
but Mark's Gospel is obviously made 



44 THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 

up of notes from Peter's evangelistic 
addresses. 

So we see from these simple exam- 
ples how human a book the Bible is, 
and how the Divinity in it has worked 
through human means. The Bible, in 
fact, has come out of religion; not 
religion out of the Bible. 



ii 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 



No book is worth anything which is not worth 
much nor is it serviceable until it has been read, 
and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and 
marked so that you can refer to the passages you 
want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapons he 
needs in any armory, or a housewife bring the 
piece she needs from her store. 

— John Ruskin. 

Except a living man, there is nothing more 
wonderful than a book I — A message to us from 
the dead — from human souls whom we never 
saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away, 
and yet these, or those little sheets of paper, 
speak to us, amuse us, comfort us, open their 
hearts to us as brothers. 

— Chas. Kingsuey. 

Good books, like good friends, are few and 
chosen ; the more select the more enjoyable. 

— A. Brqnson Alcott. 
46 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 



Jl /f Y object at this time is to give 
encouragement and help to the 
" duff ere," the class of " hopeful duffers/' 
Brilliant students have every help, but 
second-class students are sometimes neg- 
lected and disheartened. I have great 
sympathy "with the duffers," because I 
was only a second-rate student myself. 
The subject of my talk with you is 

Books. 
A gentleman in Scotland who has an 
excellent library has placed on one side 

47 



48 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

of the room his heavy sombre tomes, 
and over those shelves the form of an 
owl. On the other side of the room are 
arranged the lighter books, and over 
these is the figure of a bird known in 
Scotland as "the dipper." This is a 
most sensible division. The "owl 
books" are to be mastered, — the great 
books, such as Gibbon's "Rome," 
Butler's "Analogy," Dorner's "Person 
of Christ," and text-books of philosophy 
and science. Every student should 
master one or two, at least, of such 
"owl books," to exercise his faculties, 
and give him concentrativeness. I do 
not intend to linger at this side of the 
library, but will cross over to the " dip- 
per books," which are for occasional 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 49 

reading — for stimulus, for guidance, 
recreation. I will be 

Autobiographical. 
When I was a student in lodgings I 
began to form a library, which I ar- 
ranged along the mantelshelf of my 
room. It did not contain many books ; 
but it held as many as some students 
could afford to purchase, and if wisely 
chosen, as many as one could well use. 
My first purchase was a volume of ex- 
tracts from Ruskin's works, which then 
in their complete form were very costly. 
Ruskin taught me to use my eyes. Men 
are born blind as bats or kittens, and 
it is long before men's eyes are opened ; 
some men never learn to see as long as 
they live. I often wondered, if there was 



50 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

a Creator, why He had not made the 
world more beautiful. Would not crim- 
son and scarlet colors have been far 
richer than green and browns ? But 
Ruskin taught me to see the world as it 
is, and it soon became a new world to 
me, full of charm and loveliness. Now 
I can linger beside a ploughed field and 
revel in the affluence of color and shade 
which are to be seen in the newly turned 
furrows, and I gaze in wonder at the 
liquid amber of the two feet of air above 
the brown earth. Now the colors and 
shades of the woods are a delight, and 
at every turn my eyes are surprised at 
fresh charms. The rock which I had 
supposed to be naked I saw clothed with 
lichens — patches of color — marvellous 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 51 

organisms, frail as the ash of a cigar, 
thin as brown paper, yet growing and 
fructifying in spite of wind and rain, of 
scorching sun and biting frost I owe 
much to Ruskin for teaching me to see. 
Next on my mantelshelf was Emer- 
son. I discovered Emerson for myself. 
When I asked what Emerson was, one 
authority pronounced him a great man ; 
another as confidently wrote him down 
a humbug. So I silently stuck to 
Emerson. Carlyle I could not read. 
After wading through a page of Carlyle 
I felt as if I had been whipped. Carlyle 
scolded too much for my taste and he 
seemed to me a great man gone delirious. 
But in Emerson I found what I would 
fain have sought in Carlyle ; and, more- 



52 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

over, I was soothed and helped. Emer- 
son taught me to see with the mind. 

Next on my shelf came two or three 
volumes of George Eliot's works, from 
which I gained some knowledge and a 
furthur insight into many philosophical 
and social questions. But my chief 
debt to George Eliot at that time was 
that she introduced me to pleasant char- 
acters — nice people — and especially to 
one imaginary young lady whom I was 
in love with one whole winter, and it 
diverted my mind in solitude. A good 
novel is a valuable acquisition, and it 
supplies companionship of a pleasant 
kind. 

Amongst my small residue of books I 
must name Channing's works. Before I 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 53 

read Channing I doubted whether there 
was a God ; at least I would rather have 
believed that there were no God. After 
becoming acquainted with Channing I 
could believe there was a God, and I was 
glad to believe in Him, for I felt drawn 
to the good and gracious Sovereign of 
all things. Still, I needed further what 
I found in F. W. Robertson, the British 
officer in the pulpit — bravest, truest of 
men — who dared to speak what he be- 
lieved at all hazards. From Robertson 
I learned that God is human ; that we 
may have fellowship with Him, because 
He sympathizes with us. 

One day as I was looking over my 
mantelshelf library, it suddenly struck 
me that all these authors of mine were 



54 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

heretics — these were dangerous books. 
Undesignedly I had found stimulus and 
help from teachers who were not cred- 
ited by orthodoxy. And I have since 
found that much of the good to be got 
from books is to be gained from authors 
often classed as dangerous, for these 
provoke inquiry, and exercise one's 
powers. Towards the end of my shelf 
I had one or two humorous works ; chief 
amongst them all being Mark Twain. 
His humor is peculiar; broad exaggera- 
tion, a sly simplicity, comical situations, 
and surprising turns of expressions ; but 
to me it has been a genuine fund of 
humor. The humorous side of a stu- 
dent's nature needs to be considered, 
and where it is undeveloped, it should 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 55 

be cultivated. I have known many in- 
stances of good students who seemed to 
have no sense of humor. 

I will not recommend any of my fav- 
orite books to another ; they have done 
me good, but they might not suit another 
man. Every man must discover his own 
books ; but when he has found what fits 
in with his tastes, what stimulates him 
to thought, what supplies a want in his 
nature, and exalts him in conception and 
feelings, that is the book for the student, 
be what it may. This brings me to 
speak of 

The Friendship of Books. 

To fall in love with a good book is 
one of the greatest events that can 



56 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

befall us. It is to have a new influence 
pouring itself into our life, a new teach- 
er to inspire and refine us, a new friend 
to be by our side always, who, when life 
grows narrow and weary, will take us 
into his wider and calmer and higher 
world. Whether it be biography intro- 
ducing us to some humble life made 
great by duty done ; or history, opening 
vistas into the movements and destinies 
of nations that have passed away; or 
poetry making music of all the common 
things around us, and filling the fields, 
and the skies, and the work of the city 
and the cottage with eternal meanings 
— whether it be these, or story books, or 
religious books, or science, no one can 
become the friend even of one good 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 57 

book without being made wiser and 
better. Do not think I am going to 
recommend any such book to you. The 
beauty of a friend is that we discover 
him. And we must each taste the 
books that are accessible to us for our- 
selves. Do not be disheartened at first 
if you like none of them. That is pos- 
sibly their fault, not yours. But search 
and search till you find what you like. In 
amazingly cheap form — for a few pence 
indeed — almost all the best books are now 
to be had ; and I think everyone owes it 
as a sacred duty to his mind to start a 
little library of his own. How much do 
we not do for our bodies ? How much 
thought and money do they not cost us ? 
And shall we not think a little, and pay 



58 A TALK ON BOOKS. 

a little, for the clothing and adorning of 
the imperishable mind? This private 
library may begin, perhaps, with a single 
volume, and grow at the rate of one or 
two a year; but these well-chosen and 
well-mastered, will become such a foun- 
tain of strength and wisdom that each 
shall be eager to add to his store. A 
dozen books accumulated in this way 
may be better than a whole library. Do 
not be distressed if you do not like 
time-honored books, or classical works, 
or recommended books. Choose for 
yourself; trust yourself; plant yourself 
on your own instincts ; that which is 
natural for us, that which nourishes us, 
and gives us appetite, is that which is 
right for us. We have all different 



A TALK ON BOOKS. 59 

minds, and we are all at different stages 
of growth. Some other day we may- 
find food in the recommended book, 
though we should possibly starve on 
it to-day. The mind develops and 
changes, and the favorites of this year, 
also, may one day cease to interest us. 
'Nothing better indeed can happen to us 
than to lose interest in a book we have 
often read ; for it means that it has done 
its work upon us, and brought us up to 
its level, and taught us all it had to 
teach. 



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